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Thursday, 30 September 2010

I just wanted to thank you all for your lovely comments on my cards... I've tried coming round to comment on your blogs, but this headache is really getting to me... being on the laptop is actually making me feel a bit sick :o( I'm really sorry, I'll try and leave comments for you all tomorrow instead! I'm going to step away from the laptop for tonight and see if that helps.

A couple of quick circle cards - I've been playing with my dies again, ready for my demo on Saturday... I feel like I'll NEVER be ready! It doesn't help that the kids have been poorly, followed by me being poorly... I'm sick of feeling limp, tired and headachey - I've not been able to do much blogging because it really makes my head hurt. Oh well, enough complaining!

My first card is in autumn colours... I think the paper is Bo Bunny, ivory linen cardstock is from Papermill. Flowers are Green Tara, with a button centre. Added some ribbon and a ribbon slider that I found in my button stash, some card candy and a Craftwork Cards sentiment.

I've used Papermill card for the base of this one, with papers from the Papermania 'big one' pad. The butterfly was cut with a quickutz die with some pearls added. Ric rac ribbon and button slider found in my stash, black card candy and a Craftwork Cards sentiment. Both circle cards were cut with Go-Kreate dies.

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

I don't normally put this sort of commissioned card on my blog, as they're not totally 'me' (although I'm often asked for cards with photos), but I don't have anything else to show you today as I've only made this. The request was for a 40th card with a football theme, in Manchester United colours... I had to google for the team strip lol... obviously I knew they played in red, but I'd assumed it was stripes and it's not, it's solid red - glad I checked! Can you tell I don't 'do' football?!

I used photos supplied by my customer, plain red paper from my stash with black coredinations. The football paper is from a Papermania pad, and I cut some footballs from the paper to carry on the theme on the inside. Computer generated sentiment on the front, and the one on the inside is from a Popcorn Bear set.

These pics are just to show the design and inside... it's quite simple really - I just made two 5" square cards and then stuck them together, so the middle panel is double layered. Really easy and a handy one when you need to add lots of pics!

Apologies if I've not managed to visit you in the last couple of days - I've been trying to keep up with you all, but I'm not feeling very well and I'm also really busy... not a good combination! I did get round some of you earlier, will try and do some more visiting this evening.

As I've used photos, I'm going to enter my card for the 'picture perfect' challenge at Lexi's Creations.

Monday, 27 September 2010

Here's another quick card, as that's all I've got time for at the moment! This is Birthday Lulabelle from Digistamp Boutique, and she's available here if you'd like to own her too :o) I've coloured her with promarkers, then added my usual shading and glow using koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador. The paper is Making Memories, with some very dark brown Papermill cardstock, ribbon from Little Claire, a button from my stash and a computer generated sentiment.

I'm not completely happy with how this turned out, as the bow seems to have a mind of it's own and looks a bit messy - it's also covering up the sentiment a bit too. I might have another go at this sketch some time as I think I could have done better with it!

Sunday, 26 September 2010

I'm busy making samples for my craft shop demo, but while I had the Little Claire dies out I thought I'd make a quick card for a few challenges. I've used the 'oh Christmas tree' die, available here, gold pearlised card from my stash, and Papermill ivory linen card. The sentiment is from Elzybells, stamped in rubbishy smudgy gold ink! It wasn't until I came to stamp it that I realised I don't have any gold embossing powder (I've got silver, typically), or any decent gold ink. I've embossed it to make it look a bit better... must get some more ink pads!

I'm feeling a bit limp today - I knew I'd get a cold because the boys have had it all week, so it was no surprise when I woke up this morning with a pounding head and sore throat. Oh, I had fabby news though - my auntie (she's only 3yrs older than me though, so we grew up more like sisters) had her baby yesterday :o) She's had a really hard time, losing one baby to Edwards syndrome, followed by a couple of miscarriages and then a difficult pregnancy with regular hospital stays for bleeds (she had placenta previa)... baby Jessica was finally delivered by emergency section - Di had to have a general anaesthetic after a bad bleed so she wasn't awake for the delivery and is feeling quite poorly. Jessica is doing well though, although she's about 5wks early and is in special care. I'm so glad they're both ok though, it's such a relief!

Saturday, 25 September 2010

The last of the cards for my eldest son's 8th birthday - this one's from us. His latest fad is karate (last year was football and the year before was tennis) and he's slightly obsessed with it at the moment. Lovely Sally-Ann at Digistamp Boutique kindly drew 2 fabulous images for me to use... actually thinking about it, I might colour the other image and use that on a tag.

I've coloured fabby Josh, available here, with promarkers and then added my usual shading and glow with koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador. The papers are MME, with coredinations cardstock. Added some jute stuff (very technical!) and some spotty ribbon from Little Claire - it's one of their new ones which is available here. The sentiment is a downloaded one from Cuddly Buddly, mounted on a nellie snellen circle frame die.

My car cost £350 to sort out... sob!! I ordered loads of stamps this morning in the Elzybells closing down sale - well, they are unbelievable prices now so I just couldn't resist! Then hubby rang me and told me how much the car cost and I felt very guilty - bad wifey!!! So I have to behave myself from now on, no more unnecessary craft spending... wonder how long I'll manage to keep that up!

Thursday, 23 September 2010

What do you think - does he look hairy? This image (surely the cutest monster ever!) is from Pollycraft, and he just looks like he should have shaggy hair... so I coloured him with promarkers, added some shading and glow with koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador, and then used the pencils to add lots of little furry bits. Needs a bit of practice doesn't it, but I still quite like it :o) Papers are Doodlebug, cardstock is coredinations, buttons from stash and computer generated sentiment.

This is another card for my son, who'll be 8 on Monday - this one's for my mum to give him. I did it in purple because that's his favourite colour. It's taken me all day to make and it's only a simple one - my 2yr old has a rotten cold and wouldn't let me do much, and he couldn't get to sleep at nap time either. It's been a bad day all round really - my car's making a terrible noise and hubby thinks it's the exhaust... don't really want to risk using it tomorrow, so that means I'll have to do a 45 minute walk to school and back, morning and afternoon, all uphill on way there, pushing Dex's buggy (he'll walk some of it, but won't manage it all). So that's something to look forward to! Oh well, I suppose the walk will do me good....

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

Last week I joined in with WOYWW for the first time, but I was a bit of a wuss and didn't show the worst of it, so most people seemed to think I'm quite tidy.... I'm going to shatter those illusions today! The first pic is my workdesk that I showed last week - think I need to clear some space so I can actually use it today.

The next pic is of the area generally known as 'the overspill'....

It's shameful isn't it? I do clear it quite often, but it doesn't take long for it to end up like this again!

From another angle, and you can see where I do my die cutting too. I'm not (and probably never will be!) ready to show the floor or the other side of the craft room though lol!

We're off to a play centre tonight as my eldest has been invited to a party... I'll not get to talk to anyone though, I'll spend the whole time 'herding' my little one who will want to play in the 'big kids' area with everyone else. I need to make a tag to go on the present too, I forgot about that. And hopefully get some more preparation done for the craft shop demo I'm doing on the 2nd Oct... I've never done one before and I'm soooo nervous! I'm not the most confident person and when they asked me I was so close to turning it down, but finally managed to talk myself into it - fingers crossed it won't be a total disaster!

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

I'm going to keep this brief, as my internet is playing up and is sooooo slow! This card is for my eldest son, whose birthday is next week, from my youngest son... I'd better explain the sentiment, I realise it makes no sense, but Dex can't quite say 'I love you' yet, so this is how he says it :o) You can find gorgeous Marvin here.

Apologies for keeping this so short, but I really want to try and visit some of your blogs before I have to do the school run, so fingers crossed the internet connection will be playing nicely... grrrr!

Monday, 20 September 2010

Time for a new challenge at Crafty Cardmakers, and this time we have the theme of 'around the world', so you can use anything as long as it obviously represents a country or continent in some way.

I feel like a total cheat with this card! Partly because I went for a super easy option and chose an arctic (or is it antarctic?) theme... although I did go round and round in circles trying to decide what to do before I settled on this. And also because there is no colouring on my card - I've used one of the new 'cute squares' from LOTV and just added lots of stickles to it. For some reason it makes me feel really guilty using something I've not coloured myself! But I've bought lots of these to help me get through the Christmas orders so I'll have to get used to them.... wow, it's so difficult to find papers to go with a pre-coloured image though, it took me ages! These are some dovecraft ones from last year I think, with some shimmery gold cardstock from my stash. Added a piece of whitewash coredinations embossed with a snowflake folder and sanded back, some MS punched snowflakes, a cuttlebug snowflake (cut down to make it smaller), blue card candy, ribbon and a computer generated sentiment. Oh, and the LOTV squares are a perfect fit for the largest nestie scalloped square :o)

Bless hubby - when I showed him this card, he said 'well it's nice, and it'll speed up the orders, but the colouring doesn't look as good as yours' aww... he's totally biased of course... and knows nothing about colouring... but still aww!

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Meet the lovely Lulabelle, a new release image from Digistamp Boutique - isn't she fabulous?! I've been itching to make something with her, even though there's loads of other stuff I should really be getting on with! I also wanted to have a go at the colour challenge at Crafty Catz, as it's Linds' colour choice this week - choc & green... not a natural one for me, although I've used it on male cards I think... however, Linds is fab at putting colours together that you wouldn't normally think would work, so if she says it'll also work on girly cards I'm inclined to believe her :o)

I've coloured the image with promarkers, with shading and glow using koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador. The paper is K&Co Brenda Pinnick... from the girl pad I think, with coredinations cardstock. The flowers were cut with x-cut punches, with flat back pearl centres. Sentiment is from the girly stamp sheet from LOTV. Super simple card... as usual I tried, really tried, to follow various sketches, but this is what happened instead!

Saturday, 18 September 2010

The postie brought me this super cute stamp from Pink Gem yesterday and I just couldn't resist using it straight away! Hubby went out 'to drink mucky beer' last night, as our eldest says, so I had a lovely peaceful colouring session and made 2 cards.

I was going for a bit of a vintage look for the first card, but probably ruined that with all the glitter! I coloured the image with promarkers and then added some shading with koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador. Added lots of glamour dust for sparkle. The paper is from my lovely new paper pad by GCD Studio - hubby was with me when I bought it, and he nearly keeled over with shock at the price lol, but I couldn't resist! The snowflakes were cut with my new (oh dear, so naughty!) MS punch that I bought from Little Claire. Plain circle cut with nesties, scalloped circle cut with a Go-Kreate die. Added some card candy, pearl dots with a viva pen (I'm going to stop using it, I'm totally useless with it...) and a computer generated sentiment.

I went for a more modern look with my second card. Image coloured with promarkers and koh-i-noors again, with glamour dust. The paper is from another new pad (hangs head in shame), this one is Let It Snow by Dovecraft I think, again bought from Little Claire, as was the tag die, which is from this set. MS snowflake punch as before, card candy, computer generated sentiment and a button from my stash. Added some stickles dots around the scallops, another mistake I think! This one is for an order, but I've just loosely attached the sentiments on each card so that I can swap them if my customer prefers the other one, or in case she wants them both.

Thursday, 16 September 2010

My mum's fiance asked me to make this card for his daughter, and my mum chose the image and colours based on a card I made a while ago that she liked. I think the pink ran away with me a little though, as it turned out quite bright!

The image is from Stitchy Stamps, coloured with promarkers, with some shading added with koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador. Then lots of lovely glamour dust all over her wings :o) I've used coredinations card embossed with various embossing folders and sanded it all back to rough it up a bit. Used plain & scalloped ovals and blossom nesties. The tag was cut with the smallest die from this set from Little Claire, oh I do love these tags! I inked around the tag with distress ink but I'm not keen on that bit... doesn't look quite right... I added a few little flowers to distract from the ink a bit! The flowers are all punched with x-cut punches, with viva pearl centres - still haven't got the hang of this stuff... why does everyone else's 'pearls' look nicely rounded and mine go all pointy and odd looking? Anyway... used a MS doily lace punch that you can just see behind the embossed panels, added some lace. For the easel stopper I used some MME flower buttons, then added some card candy to finish it off. Oh, numbers were cut with the Sizzix 'night & day' alphabet.

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

A first for me - I've seen loads of bloggers doing WOYWW but have never joined in myself, so excuse me for butting in! I'm sort of hoping it will shame me into doing something about the mess that I work in... maybe you'll see a perfect desk next week, and maybe one day I'll get round to painting the walls something other than the lemon yellow that's been there since my eldest (who'll be 8 soon) was a baby.

The enormous 'organiser' tub to the right is absolutely stuffed full of scraps that I'm trying to use up but probably never will. The rail is from Ikea and was actually put on the wall to store my promarkers, but I've moved all my colouring stuff downstairs now (so I can colour while the littlies are creating chaos). There's a card that I started last night, half finished... the strip of lace started out white and I covered it with black ink because I wanted it black, thinking it would dry overnight, but I checked it when I took my pics and it hasn't, so I might have to re-think that idea! Button pots, punches, glue and glossy accents that all have official places on shelves so shouldn't be there, but everything seems to end up piled up on my desk.

Edited to add - I'm thinking I should have been brave and shown the 'overspill' desk to the left of my workspace above, as so many of you have commented how tidy it is... my craft room looks like a rubbish tip, so I will be braver and add more views next week lol!

This is my colouring area downstairs in the kitchen - the only way I get anything done when I should be entertaining my youngest. Not much to say about this bit really! The tubs are full of promarkers, and there are koh-i-noor pencils and sansador there too, and my promarker colour chart... oh and some finished cards that should have been moved to my box upstairs.

Off to sort out my stinky boy now, who's supposed to be potty/ toilet training, but is taking some convincing!

Monday, 13 September 2010

Here's another card using one of the fab new images from Digistamp Boutique - this is Josh & Skateboard and he's available here on his own or here as part of one of the 'offer of the month' sets of images. There is also a lovely new set of Winter Coco images.

This is one of those cards where you have an idea in your head and it doesn't quite turn out how you expected... I feel like there's something missing! Ah well! I've coloured lovely Josh with promarkers, with a teeny bit of added shading using koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador, and then cut him out. The papers are downloaded, but I printed them ages ago so I'm not sure where they're from - possibly freebie ones from Summer Driggs. Cardstock is coredinations, buttons are MME, and the lettering was cut with the Sizzix 'night & day' alphabet.

Sunday, 12 September 2010

Ooh exciting - brand new images from Digistamp Boutique! :o) There are 2 new 'offer of the month' sets - 1 with gorgeous winter Coco images and a fab set of Josh images.

I've used Pirate Josh & Parrot for my card - LOVE him! He's coloured with promarkers with some extra shading and glow using koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador. The papers are Basic Grey 'Oliver' (had them ages but this is their first outing... shame on me!), cardstock is coredinations. The tag is cut with the smallest die from this set from Little Claire, sentiment is a digi one from TLC and I've used 'black soot' distress ink around the tag. Added a few teeny buttons and some raffia from my stash.

Thursday, 9 September 2010

Here's another little cutie from Digistamp Boutique - this is Birthday Matilda and she's available here. When I started this I was following the sketch at Sketch Saturday... but it just wasn't happening so this is what I ended up with! I don't know why, but that seems to happen a lot when I use a sketch lately, I don't seem to be able to stick to them at all!

I've coloured Matilda with promarkers, with added shading and 'glow' using koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador. The plain circle was cut with nesties, scalloped circle cut with a Go-Kreate die. The paper is from the K&Co Brenda Pinnick 'girl' pad... seem to be using these a lot at the moment! I've added some swirl die cuts - ages ago I borrowed some sizzix swirl dies from a friend and cut lots of swirls, but then never used them. I'm not sure why, because I quite like them now... might have to get some swirl dies myself lol. Added a little stamped tag sentiment, some ribbon and a bow (tied with the bow-easy) and lots of pearls around the circle... oh and the pearl pins - another thing I've had for AGES and just can't seem to use, so I made myself use them.

We're doing the dreaded potty training in our house at the moment - I HATE potty training and have put it off for as long as I can... Dex will be 3 in January so I thought we'd better have a go. He won't have anything to do with the potty though, so we went out to buy one of those padded toilet seats so that he can use the loo instead. I let him choose which seat he wanted... he could have had plain white (nope)... green 'in the night garden' one (nope)... blue 'thomas' one (nope)... no, he chose the bright pink Peppa Pig one lol :o) That's my boy!

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

Little Claire sent me this adorable little night owls stamp last week - isn't it cute? This is actually just part of the stamp, there are 2 squares with different owl images so they could be used together or separately.

For some reason when I looked at this little owl, I decided he had to be done in pink and purple... then I added some orange too! I've coloured it with promarkers, then used a koh-i-noor pencil blended with sansador for the sky, and a touch of sakura clear stardust pen on the stars. The spotty pink paper is Doodlebug, and a piece of the orange cardstock has been embossed with the cuttlebug swiss dots folder. Added a couple of punched flowers, with button centres and some dew drops to finish.

Monday, 6 September 2010

This week at Crafty Cardmakers our challenge is a clean & simple one - I had FUN with this :o) I suppose I probably should have had a bit more 'white space' going on, but I think it's still CAS... it's my sort of style anyway!

The fabby image is from Digistamp Boutique - his name is Dexter, the same as my youngest son, so of course I had to have these images lol. You can buy him on his own here or in a set here. I've coloured him with promarkers and then used koh-i-noors blended with sansador to add some extra shading and glow... the glow is overdone slightly but never mind, I'll get the hang of it eventually! The paper is from the K&Co Brenda Pinnick 'boy' pad, with Papermill cardstock, a nestie star and ribbon and a button from my stash - the button is one that I've been 'saving'... I occasionally pick it up and consider using it but haven't until now because I liked it too much... I've got a few like that! I made this one for my hubby's grandad, and I think he liked it but it's hard to be sure as he's Polish and doesn't speak a word of English... he's quite elderly and tends to get confused - he'll chatter away to me in Polish and then look at me like I'm very stupid indeed when he doesn't get an answer! If I'd have been a bit more organised I would've used the Dexter with a blank sign and put a Polish sentiment on, but I'm rubbish...

Don't forget - if you use any Digistamp Boutique image, you can enter the monthly competition on the Digistamp Boutique blog, and have a chance at winning some lovely images. You can enter as many times as you like each month :o)

Sunday, 5 September 2010

Hubby brought my box home from his work this weekend as it's looking a bit bare, so today I've made some quick cards to top it up a bit. It's no good making anything particularly elaborate, as the simpler ones seem to sell better there... possibly because I don't charge as much for them! There will probably be quite a few simple cards on my blog this week while I try and fill the box up. I'm also trying to use some bits and pieces up that I've had sitting around for ages.

The first card is a bit of a cheat really! It's just a sheet of paper (from a free Kate Knight pad that came with a magazine), with some cardstock from my stash, and some gems added to the flower centres. The sentiment is a LOTV stamp from the girly A5 sheet of stamps.

Another 'cheat' card! The image is a Penny Black stickeroo, so no stamping and colouring involved... I've got quite a few of these stickers and I never use them which seems a bit daft really, so I'm going to try and use them up. The paper is a scrap from a K&Co sheet, green cardstock from my stash. Added a Craftwork Cards sentiment and some card candy.

This one is based on an old sketch from the clean & simple blog. The papers are scraps from some downloaded ones, but I'm not sure where from sorry... cardstock from my stash. The sentiment stamp is from a Papermania birthday set, nestie stars, with buttons from my stash.

Nothing very exciting but I've managed these 3, plus another one nearly finished, plus a DT card today... and we went to Pav's mum's for dinner too! Normally I sit down to make a quick card and shuffle things around and stare at papers and end up making one card, so I'm quite pleased really :o) Hope you've all had a lovely weekend!

Saturday, 4 September 2010

This one is for my mum and her fiance Andrew, who moved into their new house yesterday... finally! They've been trying to sell my mum's house for 2 years! It has sold several times and then something always happened and the sale would fall through. Mum was ready to take it off the market because she'd had enough, but she got another buyer and everything went through this time, very slowly but they got there in the end! I feel a bit sad about it really, as I grew up in that house, and it's a big part of my memories of my dad (who died nearly 10 years ago)... I'm happy for my mum though, I'm glad she's found someone and isn't alone.

Anyway.... onto my card... The cute house image is from Digistamp Boutique and is available here. I've coloured this one entirely with my koh-i-noor pencils, blended with sansador - not a promarker in sight. I'm not happy with it though! The sky in particular looks awful - I just can't seem to blend the blue properly, possibly it's the card that I'm using but it seems odd that all the others blend fine but the blue still looks very 'pencilly' (yes, I know that's not a real word!). I've followed the sketch at Friday Sketchers - I took one look at it, and thought 'no way!!!', but then I decided to challenge myself... I find sketches with loads of layers a bit daunting due to my urge to mat and layer everything - I've resisted that this time though. The papers are from the K&Co Brenda Pinnick 'boy' pad. Added some raffia lace, a felt flower with a Papermania button centre, Doodlebug letter tiles - and then because I didn't have an 'o' tile, I used a button with a heart pearl centre instead, and added an extra pearl heart on the house door.

Thursday, 2 September 2010

Here's a couple of cards made with the September club stamp set from Little Claire Designs - this is a huge set and fantastic value. There are main images, sentiment stamps and lots of little accent stamps, it's a lovely set. I've made my first card using the little Christmas pudding, Merry Christmas sentiment and the 3 snowflake stamps from the set, all stamped in white ink (from Elzybells) onto Kraft paper that I bought AGES ago from Craftwork Cards and then never used (because I couldn't decide what to do with it!). The red shape is a nestie, but I forgot to check which one, sorry. I've edged everything with the white ink, and then used my promarkers and a touch of stickles for the little berries.

For my second card I used the cute penguin from the set, coloured with promarkers, with lots of glamour dust for some sparkle. I've used some frame dies from Little Claire to cut out and mount the image. Papers are MME, and the shimmery blue cardstock is from my stash. I really should have done more with this card, it needs some snowflakes or something, but I was having a blank moment when I made it and nothing seemed to work!

My house is soooo lovely and peaceful today, as it's my eldest son's first day back at school. I still have my younger son at home - and will have until next Easter when he starts nursery - but it's so much easier and quieter with just Dex :o) I'm hoping to get a lot more done now that I have a bit of peace!

Ooh I'm so excited to be able to tell you my news today - the lovely Sally-Ann at Digistamp Boutique has asked me to be a Guest Designer for the next few months!!! Any regular followers of my blog will probably have noticed my slight obsession with DSB images... I think I own almost every image lol! Honestly I can't put into words quite how excited I've been since I got the email from Sally-Ann... hubby thinks I'm bonkers of course, they don't get it do they?

So here's a card made with one of the fabby DSB images, this one is available here. I've coloured this little cutie with promarkers, with koh-i-noor pencils blended with sansador for a little glow around the outside of the image. The bathtub is paper pieced, shaped slightly with an embossing tool and then covered in glossy accents. I've also layered up the bow and some of the bubbles in the same way (although I didn't gloss the bow). Used nestie circles and blossom dies to cut out and mount the image. The papers are Dovecraft, with coredinations cardstock, and I printed the sentiments directly onto the paper (after a lot of faffing around trying to get it right!). Finished with lots of little punched flowers (x-cut punch) and some viva pearl dots in the centres... my 'pearls' aren't very good, I've still not got the hang of the viva pearl pen!

I'll be back later to announce my candy winners... and yippee it's back to school tomorrow!!! Oh I feel like such a mean mummy being so pleased, but I can't wait to get back into the usual routines :o)

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About Me

I'm Lisa, and I live in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, with my husband Pav and our 2 boys Morgan (15) and Dexter (10yrs). We also had another son, Harvey, who sadly was stillborn in Feb 2007. I've always lived in Sheffield, but my husband is from Poland.
I'm completely obsessed with cardmaking - I think I even dream cards!
Thank you to anyone who follows me, and if you visit my blog please leave a comment if you have time - then I can come and visit you :o)

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